Computer AI Trounces Go Champ; UN Slams UK Web Snooping

Today’s Tech Sightings:

South Korea’s Lee Sedol (R), the world’s top Go player, shakes hands with Demis Hassabis, CEO of DeepMind Technologies and developer of AlphaGO, after a news conference ahead of matches against Google’s artificial intelligence program AlphaGo, in Seoul, South Korea, March 8, 2016. Go is an ancient Chinese board game, where players battle for more ground. (Reuters)

And the battle is on. Google’s artificial intelligence (AI) program has soundly beaten professional South Korean Go master Lee Se-dol in their first face-off. Google’s DeepMind’s AlphaGo made a clean 5-0 sweep in the first round of the complicated strategy board game. The competition is being heralded as a test of ongoing efforts to create machines that are smarter than humans. A $1 million prize is at stake.

Britain’s Investigatory Powers Bill, which expands police powers to collect data, has come under fire again, this time from the United Nations’ special rapporteur on privacy, Joseph A. Cannataci. Dubbed the Snooper’s Charter by critics, Cannataci said the bill is disproportionate and threatens the spirit of privacy. His report on the state of privacy in 2016 can be found here.

The prevalence of mobile devices in the past few years has hit the desktop PC market hard. And now the tablet market is also shrinking. Meanwhile future PCs are taking shape, becoming detachable and portable. Writer Matt Weinberger argues that Microsoft is currently better poised than Apple to take advantage of the detachable evolution.

Aida Akl is a journalist working on VOA's English Webdesk. She has written on a wide range of topics, although her more recent contributions have focused on technology. She has covered both domestic and international events since the mid-1980s as a VOA reporter and international broadcaster.